Peer to Peer Magazine

76 PEER TO PEER: THE QUARTERLY MAGAZINE OF ILTA | SUMMER 2016 in juxtaposition to one another, which is particularly challenging in law. Dan: Machine learning systems have the most promise. Several firms have announced that they're using platforms such as ROSS, which is based on the IBM Watson engine. I've also seen efficiency improved in the tech decoding space with tools such as Brainspace and other interesting new compare products. We've been working with these types of technologies for over a year, and we'll continue to see improvements there. What changes might staff anticipate with the introduction of technologies like artificial intelligence? Ken: The past has been about understanding the words on a page in a very simplistic form. As we go forward, we will need to take text and break it down into data. We will be able to look at that data with computational linguists to get a substantive, meaningful, semantic understanding so staff can see the text in a very different way and then tie that data to other data available in the world. When staff start thinking about text as data and have it in a form you can manipulate, compare and combine, they'll dive deeper and gain more substantive insight. Dan: We've been looking at and working with artificial intelligence products, and the initial reaction is this will be so great, this will help me so much, this will do abc. However, I'm still reading through everything to be sure it's 100 percent accurate because it's a machine performing the work. Future-focused technologies will shorten the job, but not take it away. Brice: The biggest thing will be that users will learn how to use programs on their own. IT will be the experts on how to properly install and integrate a program, but there will be too many one-off options for us to be knowledgeable about them all. What's the strangest or silliest technology you've come across recently? Dan: I came across something called CRISPR/ Cas9, which doesn't have a lot to do with aorneys at this time. Coming out of the Human Genome Project, the technology creates "DNA scissors" that can take a bad string of DNA and replace it with a good string. The technology is being tested now. Just think what a change this could be to a person's life. Brice: Google self-driving cars are a lile unnerving. Siing there and leing the computer drive could make things safer on the roads, but what other results will come from the change? Imagine your grandchildren taking driver's education. Is there an instructor? Do they have any control over the car? And that's just the beginning. Ken: One of the sillier ones I was told about recently was an application that could compare an original document to a changed one. The proposal was that the user would send the two documents aached to an email to a third-party service, which would compare them, provide a redline and then send the documents back to the user. The entrepreneur was not from the legal industry; I tried to explain we already have tools that are easier, faster and more secure, but he was adamant the technology would be a breakthrough and solve many problems. A Future-Focused Community ASK THE EXPERT BRICE DUFFY Brice Duffy, Network Administrator at Larkin, Hoffman, Daly & Lindgren, Ltd., has over 15 years of hands-on experience in multiple industries, with expertise in virtualization, networking, communications and mobile. Brice is also a Microsoft and Unidesk Certified Professional. He has a reputation for being dedicated to teamwork, having a high-energy work ethic and delivering exceptional customer service. Brice is a member of the ILTACON Tech Ops Content Coordinating team. Contact him at bduffy@larkinhoffman.com. KEN GRADY Ken Grady is the Lean Law Evangelist for Seyfarth Shaw LLP and an Adjunct Professor at Michigan State University College of Law. A recognized thought leader, Ken writes and speaks internationally on legal industry issues, including innovation, leadership, efficiency and change management. Ken's articles and posts have been featured in many online and print media publications, and he is the editor and author of the blog SeytLines.com named to the ABA Journal's Blawg 100. Contact Ken at kgrady@seyfarth.com.

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